Tax reform

[sidis 9990]

damn...we've moved from posting w-2's to posting 1040's.

your posting is fairly transparent and chrispy already claimed this moniker for the board so just leave the waste of server storage to him...

[Bozo_Casanova 26773]

I thought so, now run along. 

Fart noise

[this 107]

11 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Fart noise

So...effective rate in single digits? Of course, you've been getting a great deal. Its the 1% that's subsidizing you and your family. 

[Bozo_Casanova 26773]

So...effective rate in single digits? Of course, you've been getting a great deal. Its the 1% that's subsidizing you and your family. 

Fart noise

[this 107]

5 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Fart noise

Is that translation for I'm a pussy in poor people english?

[JimmyJames 12271]

8 minutes ago, this said:

So...effective rate in single digits? Of course, you've been getting a great deal. Its the 1% that's subsidizing you and your family. 

Bullshit. You are one arrogant sounding troll though. You and your restaurant/strip club ownership and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps troll nonsense. 

I suppose you are characterizing yourself as in the top one percent. Well congrats then if true(which I’m sure is not) because you are among the very few that the trump administration has actually benefited. 

Trump is a con man wannabe dictator and all the troll posts in the world by you and your ilk is not gonna change that. All your doing is giving a bunch of weak stupid morons false hope. Congratulations on that inconsequential accomplishment. You earned your dollar/ruble. 

[this 107]

5 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Bullshit. You are one arrogant sounding troll though. You and your restaurant/strip club ownership and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps troll nonsense. 

I suppose you are characterizing yourself as in the top one percent. Well congrats then if true(which I’m sure is not) because you are among the very few that the trump administration has actually benefited. 

Trump is a con man wannabe dictator and all the troll posts in the world by you and your ilk is not gonna change that. All your doing is giving a bunch of weak stupid morons false hope. Congratulations on that inconsequential accomplishment. You earned your dollar/ruble. 

I dislike Trump as much as you do but that does not take away from the this absolute FUCKING fact that 1% takes in 20% of the income and pays 40% of all the income taxes and yet the lolpoors claim that they don't pay their fair share. Especially when the bottom 50% of the country pays 2.75% of TOTAL income tax revenue. Which isn't even twice of what Apple as a company pays per year. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

5 minutes ago, this said:

I dislike Trump as much as you do but that does not take away from the this absolute FUCKING fact that 1% takes in 20% of the income and pays 40% of all the income taxes and yet the lolpoors claim that they don't pay their fair share. Especially when the bottom 50% of the country pays 2.75% of TOTAL income tax revenue. Which isn't even twice of what Apple as a company pays per year. 

Are you including capital gains in your definition of income tax? Do the poorest pay ssi, Medicare and sales tax? Does that enter into your bullshit “analysis?”

[JimmyJames 12271]

Someone does like to say “income” tax a whole lot. 

[this 107]

6 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Are you including capital gains in your definition of income tax? Do the poorest pay ssi, Medicare and sales tax? Does that enter into your bullshit “analysis?”

Yes it includes capital gains. It includes every possible tax on INCOME there is. It does not include payroll taxes but half of them come from the employer(AKA the capital/rich/evil people) I'll just go ahead and post what I did in AOC's dumb "I want the rich to pay for everything" thread:

Federal income tax(47%), Payroll tax(34%), Corporate income tax(9%) together account for 90% of ALL the federal tax revenue generated. If you consider the top 10% as "rich", they account for 70% of ALL the federal income tax (47 X 0.7 = 32.9%), half the payroll tax comes from employers AKA the rich according to you (34/2 = 17%), and of course all the corporate income earners (must be) the rich (right?) so 32.9 + 17 + 9 = 60% of all the federal tax revenue comes from the Top 10%. At the very least. 

They take in 36% of all the income and account for more than 60% of ALL the federal tax revenue. 

For your benefit, here's the source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/

You think this is bullshit, take it up with them. Or you know, with math. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

24 minutes ago, this said:

Yes it includes capital gains. It includes every possible tax on INCOME there is. It does not include payroll taxes but half of them come from the employer(AKA the capital/rich/evil people) I'll just go ahead and post what I did in AOC's dumb "I want the rich to pay for everything" thread:

Federal income tax(47%), Payroll tax(34%), Corporate income tax(9%) together account for 90% of ALL the federal tax revenue generated. If you consider the top 10% as "rich", they account for 70% of ALL the federal income tax (47 X 0.7 = 32.9%), half the payroll tax comes from employers AKA the rich according to you (34/2 = 17%), and of course all the corporate income earners (must be) the rich (right?) so 32.9 + 17 + 9 = 60% of all the federal tax revenue comes from the Top 10%. At the very least. 

They take in 36% of all the income and account for more than 60% of ALL the federal tax revenue. 

For your benefit, here's the source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/

You think this is bullshit, take it up with them. Or you know, with math. 

And the tax rate on capital gains is....???

I had no idea the corporate tax income was so low. Thanks for pointing out the biggest problem our society has when it comes to taxes. Who also happen to be the biggest beneficiary of the recent republican tax cut fraud. 

BTW you sound pretty bitter for someone supposedly doing so well. So either you’re lying about how well you’re doing or you’re for some reason incredibly bitter over a system that seems to be benefiting you a great deal. Which is it? 

[JimmyJames 12271]

Also you once again ignore state and local taxes. You internet fraud troll. 

[wildcat09 29555]

1 hour ago, this said:

Yes it includes capital gains. It includes every possible tax on INCOME there is. It does not include payroll taxes but half of them come from the employer(AKA the capital/rich/evil people) I'll just go ahead and post what I did in AOC's dumb "I want the rich to pay for everything" thread:

Federal income tax(47%), Payroll tax(34%), Corporate income tax(9%) together account for 90% of ALL the federal tax revenue generated. If you consider the top 10% as "rich", they account for 70% of ALL the federal income tax (47 X 0.7 = 32.9%), half the payroll tax comes from employers AKA the rich according to you (34/2 = 17%), and of course all the corporate income earners (must be) the rich (right?) so 32.9 + 17 + 9 = 60% of all the federal tax revenue comes from the Top 10%. At the very least. 

They take in 36% of all the income and account for more than 60% of ALL the federal tax revenue. 

For your benefit, here's the source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/

You think this is bullshit, take it up with them. Or you know, with math. 

You're the one that seems to be having the problem with math. 

Let's try a simple hypothetical. America has a population of 100 people. One of them, let's call him Jeff Bezos, makes $100,000,000.00 per year in taxable income. The other 99 people each make $50,000.00 per year in taxable income. Let's say Jeff Bezos pays an effective rate of 10%, while the other 99 pay an effective rate of 100%. Stick with me, this is just a hypothetical. In this scenario, Jeff Bezos would owe $10,000,000.00, while the other 99 people combined would owe $4,950,000.00. In this scenario one percent of taxpayers would be responsible for 66.89% of all tax revenue! How unfair that would be to Jeff Bezos! Those other 99 would be riding his coattails without his getting nearly the same benefit!

 

Edited August 1, 2018 by wildcat09

[Brew 3049]

15 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

Also you once again ignore state and local taxes. You internet fraud troll. 

I’m not in any way supporting the other guy, but SALT taxes are going to be more heavily biased towards the top percentage as well in total although sales tax will be biased towards the lower income as a percentage of income. The totals will still be heavily skewed to the higher income people though.

Also, your comment on corporate rates being a low percentage is off base. In 2015 the rates were much higher for corporate than now of course. The reason the percentage is so low is because the vast majority of business entities are set up as pass through entities. Additionally the largest corporations are headquartered overseas to avoid the corporate tax

[Brew 3049]

A family of four under the new plan will pay no income tax on roughly the first $64k in income. Under the old plan they would have paid income tax at that income level. This narrative that there was no benefit at lower income levels is tired.

The whole plan is a shit show and for those not in the business of dealing with it you don’t know the half of it. There are significant chunks of the legislation that there is still no guidance out on because no one knows how to deal with it. It was written so vague that the IRS and tax preparers are staring at each other waiting to see who makes the first move and we are going to end up with tax courts having to make legislative decisions to set policy.

[sidis 9990]

14 minutes ago, Brew said:

A family of four under the new plan will pay no income tax on roughly the first $64k in income. Under the old plan they would have paid income tax at that income level. This narrative that there was no benefit at lower income levels is tired.

The whole plan is a shit show and for those not in the business of dealing with it you don’t know the half of it. There are significant chunks of the legislation that there is still no guidance out on because no one knows how to deal with it. It was written so vague that the IRS and tax preparers are staring at each other waiting to see who makes the first move and we are going to end up with tax courts having to make legislative decisions to set policy.

brew, thanks for posting as you have a uniquely insightful perspective on this particular topic being a tax accountant.  I obviously have a lot of opinions regarding the overall micro, macro, and political economic implications of the law but am curious about the above.  Would you say the ambiguity is largely centered on business, personal, or both. Can you give some of the more concerning exemplars of what you are talking about?

[Tuco 5093]

Too bad this won't be felt until after the election.

WTOP

Quote

Congressional auditors say about 30 million people - 21 percent of US taxpayers - will have to come up with more money to pay their 2018 taxes next year because their employers withheld too little from their paychecks under government tables keyed to the new tax law.

....

About 27 million taxpayers would have been affected even if the new law hadn't been enacted.  The changes, however, added an estimated 3 million to that number.

 

 

Edited August 2, 2018 by Tuco

[RandomIdoit 739]

7 minutes ago, Tuco said:

Too bad this won't be felt until after the election.

WTOP

 

I just claim 1 even though I have dependents so this will not happen. Sucks for those people though. 

[David Dennison 19440]

22 hours ago, this said:

He means 30-40 hours/week with high school or liberal arts college degree and still wants to see a doctor's compensation. Watch him avoid specifics, because as soon as you start talking in specifics he starts responding in one word answers.

That's not what I mean at all. I meant exactly what I said. 

[this 107]

21 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

You're the one that seems to be having the problem with math. 

Let's try a simple hypothetical. America has a population of 100 people. One of them, let's call him Jeff Bezos, makes $100,000,000.00 per year in taxable income. The other 99 people each make $50,000.00 per year in taxable income. Let's say Jeff Bezos pays an effective rate of 10%, while the other 99 pay an effective rate of 100%. Stick with me, this is just a hypothetical. In this scenario, Jeff Bezos would owe $10,000,000.00, while the other 99 people combined would owe $4,950,000.00. In this scenario one percent of taxpayers would be responsible for 66.89% of all tax revenue! How unfair that would be to Jeff Bezos! Those other 99 would be riding his coattails without his getting nearly the same benefit!

 

Yeah, your scenario would make sense if Bezos' effective rate was lower than the other 99 people. 

On earth though, what happens in reality is that the one percent's effective tax rate is 27% while the bottom 50% has an effective tax rate of 3%. Not only do the one percent pay much much higher tax in real dollars but also in tax rate. About 9 times as much as the bottom 50%. And yet you have idiots screaming about the one percent not paying their fair share. LOL.

Source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/

Like I said, there's a reason you're not in the one percent. You just aren't very smart. Not even smart enough to read tables.

Edited August 2, 2018 by this

[this 107]

21 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

And the tax rate on capital gains is....???

I had no idea the corporate tax income was so low. Thanks for pointing out the biggest problem our society has when it comes to taxes. Who also happen to be the biggest beneficiary of the recent republican tax cut fraud. 

BTW you sound pretty bitter for someone supposedly doing so well. So either you’re lying about how well you’re doing or you’re for some reason incredibly bitter over a system that seems to be benefiting you a great deal. Which is it? 

It INCLUDES capital gains. Despite capital gains' rate being maxed out at 20% the one percent still has an overall effective rate of 27%. So it tells you that all the others that aren't making money via dividends, etc. are paying a ridiculous rate of 30-40% effective rate on wage income for the overall effective rate to be at 27%.

 

I'm not bitter about the tax, just pointing out the fallacy in your rhetoric that the ONE percent does not pay their fair share. The data proves otherwise.

[David Dennison 19440]

9 minutes ago, this said:

Yeah, your scenario would make sense if Bezos' effective rate was lower than the other 99 people. 

On earth though, what happens in reality is that the one percent's effective tax rate is 27% while the bottom 50% has an effective tax rate of 3%. Not only do the one percent pay much much higher tax in real dollars but also in tax rate. About 9 times as much as the bottom 50%. And yet you have idiots screaming about the one percent not paying their fair share. LOL.

Source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/

Like I said, there's a reason you're not in the one percent. You just aren't very smart. Not even smart enough to read tables.

Why aren't you in the 1%?

[this 107]

4 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Why aren't you in the 1%?

I'll answer that after you tell me why is it OK for the bottom fifty percent to pay only 3% effective rate and the top one percent pay 27% effective rate and yet you have dolts like you complain about them not paying their fair share?

[ChickenSandwich 9918]

4 hours ago, this said:

I'll answer that after you tell me why is it OK for the bottom fifty percent to pay only 3% effective rate and the top one percent pay 27% effective rate and yet you have dolts like you complain about them not paying their fair share?

Don’t bother. It would take more than one sentence. You are arguing with a sock

[David Dennison 19440]

5 hours ago, this said:

I'll answer that after you tell me why is it OK for the bottom fifty percent to pay only 3% effective rate and the top one percent pay 27% effective rate and yet you have dolts like you complain about them not paying their fair share?

Because the 1% can bear the burden. They're rich. Even after they pay their 27% effective rate, they're still rich.

That's why.

Now why aren't you smart enough or lucky enough to be in the 1%?

Edited August 2, 2018 by David Dennison

[JimmyJames 12271]

1 hour ago, ChickenSandwich said:

Don’t bother. It would take more than one sentence. You are arguing with a sock

You are quoting a troll, troll. 

[this 107]

 

4 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

You are quoting a troll, troll. 

Have you learned that capital gains income is still income and included in the tax rate that I cite yet? Or are you carrying on with your ignorance troll?

[JimmyJames 12271]

Given “this” (hard to google) and chicken shit sandwiches posts one has to wonder why the rich dont just up and leave this Country since they believe its fucking them over so bad on taxes, despite their suppposed riches and lavish and great lifestyle. 

Or maybe it isn’t and they’re just full of shit. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

5 minutes ago, this said:

 

Have you learned that capital gains income is still income and included in the tax rate that I cite yet? Or are you carrying on with your ignorance troll?

I knew that already and the top 1 percent get to pay far less on their capital gains than the rest of the great unwashed who don’t own shit for stocks and it doesn’t count towards their income tax rate bracket. Do you know that and are failing to mention it intentionally? 

[this 107]

6 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

I knew that already and the top 1 percent get to pay far less on their capital gains than the rest of the great unwashed who don’t own shit for stocks and it doesn’t count towards their income tax rate bracket. Do you know that and are failing to mention it intentionally? 

I guess you do not know how to even read tables. That table includes income earned from ALL sources, long term, short term capital gains, wage income, etc. And despite that the average effective tax rate is 27%. Are you really that dumb or just pretending to be dumb. 

Taxpayers reported $10.14 trillion in adjusted gross income (AGI) on 141.2 million tax returns in 2015. Total AGI grew $434 billion from 2014 levels, less than the $675 billion increase between 2013 to 2014. There were 1.6 million more tax returns filed in 2015 than in 2014, meaning that average AGI rose by $2,261 per return, or 3.3 percent.

Source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/

 

Now what does AGI include? 

Adjusted gross income, or AGI, is a person's total taxable income minus allowable tax deductions and personal exemptions. Taxable income includes all wages, salaries, tips, dividend and interest income and capital gains. These incomes comprise the "Income" portion of many IRS tax-return forms, including Form 1040A. The section following "Income" on Form 1040A is "Adjusted Gross Income," where filers make "adjustments" to their actual income by taking deductions, such as moving expenses and student-loan interest payments.

 

Jimmy, your name is what your dad should've worn the day he created you. Can you even tie your own shoes?

[David Dennison 19440]

Helping those who already have the means to help themselves.

[JimmyJames 12271]

7 minutes ago, this said:

I guess you do not know how to even read tables. That table includes income earned from ALL sources, long term, short term capital gains, wage income, etc. And despite that the average effective tax rate is 27%. Are you really that dumb or just pretending to be dumb. 

Taxpayers reported $10.14 trillion in adjusted gross income (AGI) on 141.2 million tax returns in 2015. Total AGI grew $434 billion from 2014 levels, less than the $675 billion increase between 2013 to 2014. There were 1.6 million more tax returns filed in 2015 than in 2014, meaning that average AGI rose by $2,261 per return, or 3.3 percent.

Source: https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/

 

Now what does AGI include? 

Adjusted gross income, or AGI, is a person's total taxable income minus allowable tax deductions and personal exemptions. Taxable income includes all wages, salaries, tips, dividend and interest income and capital gains. These incomes comprise the "Income" portion of many IRS tax-return forms, including Form 1040A. The section following "Income" on Form 1040A is "Adjusted Gross Income," where filers make "adjustments" to their actual income by taking deductions, such as moving expenses and student-loan interest payments.

 

Jimmy, your name is what your dad should've worn the day he created you. Can you even tie your own shoes?

Yes troll, I can tie my shoes. But I am impressed how quickly you are able to come up with misleading statistics that don’t even bother to address what I’m saying. What’s your angle here “this?” And how did you come up with the name “this?” Trying to convince us of trickle down, lower taxes are good despite exploding deficits, or how bad the rich in this Country are being fucked over by Obama two years after he’s gone? 

Anyway, here’s an article for you to ponder while you Scrooge McDuck through your piles and piles of cash:

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-effect-lower-tax-rate-capital-gains

Oh and by the way, go fuck yourself you greedy troll. 

[this 107]

4 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

Yes troll, I can tie my shoes. But I am impressed how quickly you are able to come up with misleading statistics that don’t even bother to address what I’m saying. What’s your angle here “this?” And how did you come up with the name “this?” Trying to convince us of trickle down, lower taxes are good despite exploding deficits, or how bad the rich in this Country are being fucked over by Obama two years after he’s gone? 

Anyway, here’s an article for you to ponder while you Scrooge McDuck through your piles and piles of cash:

https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-effect-lower-tax-rate-capital-gains

Oh and by the way, go fuck yourself you greedy troll. 

Listen dumbass, I concede that DESPITE that lower tax rate of a maxed out 20% on capital gains the one percent pays an EFFECTIVE tax rate of 27%. How does that occur? Its because the ones that earn their income in wages are paying a substantially higher effective tax rate. 

Comparatively, bottom fifty percent pays an effective tax rate of 3%. 

Learn something here, might help you some day to get out of life of dependency on others. 

[this 107]

9 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Helping those who already have the means to help themselves.

What goes around comes around.

 

I guess we're just quoting totally unrelated bullshit on here now since we're out of rebuttals. 

[David Dennison 19440]

4 minutes ago, this said:

What goes around comes around.

 

I guess we're just quoting totally unrelated bullshit on here now since we're out of rebuttals. 

I told you how I feel about taxing the rich. They can afford high effective rates. I don't care if you think it's fair or not.

What I want to know is why aren't you in the 1%? Where did it go wrong?

[JimmyJames 12271]

8 minutes ago, this said:

Listen dumbass, I concede that DESPITE that lower tax rate of a maxed out 20% on capital gains the one percent pays an EFFECTIVE tax rate of 27%. How does that occur? Its because the ones that earn their income in wages are paying a substantially higher effective tax rate. 

Comparatively, bottom fifty percent pays an effective tax rate of 3%. 

Learn something here, might help you some day to get out of life of dependency on others. 

So the very bottom people who don’t pay taxes at all drag down the effective tax rate of the people in the middle. Real fucking insightful genius.

Hopefully someday all the rest of us on this board can contribute as much to America as you do.

[this 107]

5 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

So the very bottom people who don’t pay taxes at all drag down the effective tax rate of the people in the middle. Real fucking insightful genius.

Hopefully someday all the rest of us on this board can contribute as much to America as you do.

I ask you again, do you once and for all understand that AGI includes capital gains? 

[this 107]

9 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I told you how I feel about taxing the rich. They can afford high effective rates. I don't care if you think it's fair or not.

What I want to know is why aren't you in the 1%? Where did it go wrong?

I told you how I feel about the bottom fifty percent wringing their hands about how the rich don't pay their fair share. Its borne out of ignorance of facts and basic math. I'm here to ail that for you. One day!

[David Dennison 19440]

One of these days we're going to get an answer as to why oh why the 1% is forced to carry water for this and his ilk.

[JimmyJames 12271]

5 minutes ago, this said:

I ask you again, do you once and for all understand that AGI includes capital gains? 

Always have. Not arguing otherwise. But thanks for your attempts to prove it anyway. 

[this 107]

7 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

So the very bottom people who don’t pay taxes at all drag down the effective tax rate of the people in the middle. Real fucking insightful genius.

Hopefully someday all the rest of us on this board can contribute as much to America as you do.

See this would be true if the table didn't further illustrate that the bottom 50% also account for under 3% of ALL the income tax revenue generated. You know, because math.

[JimmyJames 12271]

11 minutes ago, this said:

I told you how I feel about the bottom fifty percent wringing their hands about how the rich don't pay their fair share. Its borne out of ignorance of facts and basic math. I'm here to ail that for you. One day!

I don’t have a problem with the rich paying taxes or whatever. I do have a problem with the government, spurred on by the rich, to give themselves a trillion dollar tax break while blowing a hole in the deficit and fucking over future generations of America because they’re greedy assholes.

I guess that makes me a member of the fucking tea party, huh? This? 

Edited August 3, 2018 by JimmyJames

[JimmyJames 12271]

5 minutes ago, this said:

See this would be true if the table didn't further illustrate that the bottom 50% also account for under 3% of ALL the income tax revenue generated. You know, because math.

And with this, you have proven yourself to be a ridiculously stupid moron or a paid troll. I’m done engaging with your nonsense. Carry on showing your ass to the board though. 

[this 107]

7 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

I don’t have a problem with the rich paying taxes or whatever. I do have a problem with the government, spurred on by the rich, to give themselves a trillion dollar tax break while blowing a whole in the deficit and fucking over future generations of America because they’re greedy assholes.

I guess that makes me a member of the fucking tea party, huh? This? 

Let's figure out this deficit thing then, how about the rich pay a higher 30% effective tax rate?

How about the bottom 50 percent throw some skin in the game and pay uh I don't know, 15% effective tax rate? 

[Brew 3049]

50 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

I knew that already and the top 1 percent get to pay far less on their capital gains than the rest of the great unwashed who don’t own shit for stocks and it doesn’t count towards their income tax rate bracket. Do you know that and are failing to mention it intentionally? 

This makes zero sense. The top 1% pay 23.8% flat rate on capital gains. How would that be less than your great unwashed masses when that effective rate is equivalent to a pretty high taxable income? Again, $64k for a family of 4 before they pay $1 in tax. 

You two can argue all you want, but you both suck with facts and unneeded hyperbole.

[Brew 3049]

11 hours ago, sidis said:

brew, thanks for posting as you have a uniquely insightful perspective on this particular topic being a tax accountant.  I obviously have a lot of opinions regarding the overall micro, macro, and political economic implications of the law but am curious about the above.  Would you say the ambiguity is largely centered on business, personal, or both. Can you give some of the more concerning exemplars of what you are talking about?

It is centered on business income. The pass through income deduction is a cluster fuck with no clarification provided in the tax law. The IRS and preparers are in a standoff at this point to see who blinks first. The elimination of entertainment deductions is going to be a cluster as well.

[JimmyJames 12271]

7 minutes ago, Brew said:

This makes zero sense. The top 1% pay 23.8% flat rate on capital gains. How would that be less than your great unwashed masses when that effective rate is equivalent to a pretty high taxable income? Again, $64k for a family of 4 before they pay $1 in tax. 

You two can argue all you want, but you both suck with facts and unneeded hyperbole.

My point, which I apparently have not been making very well, is why are capital gains taxed at 15, 20, or 23.8 as you say when regular ordinary income can and is taxed up to 40 percent? And that’s only on the federal level. This disproportionately greatly benefits the already wealthy at the expense of the poor or middle class or whatever who work themselves up to a higher income through real wages or whatever. Why should bill gates pay at a less effective tax rate than Tom Brady or lebron? 

[Brew 3049]

My assumption is because both parties see an investment of capital into business as a good thing and so they treat the return of capital as unearned income with a different rate just the same as they do with qualified dividends.

[Anastasis 23699]

i.e. social engineering via the tax code.

 

[David Dennison 19440]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Or social engineering via the tax code.

I am amazed that people don't realize that this is one of the main purposes of the tax code.